Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Another foreign policy success story

It's impossible to blame the Bush administration for the
collapse
of talks with Iran. It's not constructive to point out
that the Bush administration invaded Iraq because of a
nuclear weapons program that did not exist. But with Shia
control of nuclear Iran growing cozier by the minute with
Shia controlled Iraq, it might be helpful to point out that
pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq could easily hasten the
nuclear program they went in to dismantle in the first
place.

Iran threw down the gauntlet to the west yesterday, telling
UN nuclear inspectors it was preparing to resume part of its
uranium enrichment programme in breach of a pact with the
EU. The enrichment programme could be used to arm nuclear
warheads.

It was a high-risk move that could shatter two years of
negotiations with the EU, trigger an emergency meeting of
the UN nuclear watchdog in Vienna, and see Tehran referred
for penalties to the UN security council. Iran delivered a
letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency saying UN
seals at a uranium conversion plant near the town of Isfahan
would be removed to start turning raw uranium into a gaseous
form that can then be processed into nuclear fuel.